Contemporary art always incites one of two reactions in me: I’m either compelled by the concept and its resonance in society, or I’m completely appalled by what I’m looking at and seriously question its “artistic merits.” I’m sorry, Duchamp, but that’s just a toilet.

There are way too many people out there who think they are artists and try to prove their worth in the art community with experimentation. Now I’m all for the unconventional and thinking outside the box. But in this day and age where bad can be so bad that it’s good, and bizarre is often mistaken for ground-breaking, falling inside the box every now and then should be a good thing.

Especially considering the controversies that have stirred the art world in the last few weeks. First there is Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas, who tied up a starving dog next to the words “you are what you read” spelled out with dog food, and used the dog as a part of an art exhibit. He kept the dog there to continue to starve until the dog died a day later. The artist explained that the exhibit was meant to bring attention to the thousands of stray dogs that die in the streets.

This week German artist Gregor Schneider started looking for a terminally ill patient that would be willing to die for art. Schneider wants to have someone’s last hours be spent in an art gallery open to public viewing. The head of the German hospice foundation called the art project “pure voyeurism.” The artist responded by stating that he wants to bring dignity back to death.

Then there is an art student at Yale, Aliza Shvarts. For her senior art project, Shvarts claims that she artificially inseminated herself and then induced abortions, which she videotaped in her bathtub. She was going to use the blood from her miscarriages and the footage as part of her exhibit, which was supposed to debut Tuesday. Yale administrators would not allow the show to go on unless Shvarts wrote that her project was “creative fiction” (actually not that creative), which I think means a hoax. But Shvarts is sticking by her story.

Now if Shvarts’ project was to test how simple it is to bring national media attention to art by the way of controversy, she deserves an A, but what she really wanted is to spark discourse on the form and function of a woman’s body. Really I think she just wanted to attain legitimacy as an artist, wasn’t too good in painting class and decided to compensate by splashing her menstrual blood all over the place. Oh, call it performance art.

The questions about abortion she was trying to raise have been shrouded by the bigger question of, “What the hell is she doing?” So in that case, Shvarts deserves an F. Now for my senior art project, I’m going to devirginize a girl and use a mixture of the blood and semen to paint a portrait of the Virgin Mary. See? Anyone can be an artist.

Weinberg senior Oscar Raymundo can be reached at [email protected].